Synopsis

The samurai are a very important part of Japan's history, and to be related to them in any way is probably one of the most inspiring things that a young high school student could hope for.

Kawakami City is well-known for having many samurai ancestors among its citizens, and is generally surrounded by an atmosphere of fighting spirit, loyalty, and dedication to work. In Maji de Watashi ni Koi Shinasai!, the students of Kawakami Academy use this knowledge on a daily basis, whether they are studying for exams, competing in sports competitions, or making sure that they take very good care of their traditions. Yamato Naoe is one such student, and his six closest friends (three boys and three girls) make up the perfect team for friendship, rivalry, and motivation. However, even samurai have weaknesses.

Although the balance and long friendship of their group has been undisturbed for a long time, when two new girls enter the group, things start to get a lot more interesting. Not only must they maintain what they think is the samurai tradition, but they must now also do it with a lot of "distractions."

[contains some mild spoilers, some suggestive language, and some comparison to the visual novel]

What a slaughter.

Maji de Watashi ni Koishinasai (TV) is one of the two visual novels that was adapted this fall season. In comparison to Mashiro-iro, which was a decent adaptation, MajiKoi’s adaptation was pure shit. In Mashiro’s review, I stated that Mashiro was considered an “average visual novel”, which made the mediocre storyline understandable. But, MajiKoi doesn’t have the luxury of using the excuse “the visual novel was bad”, it was considered a great visual novel (8.71@VNDB). In other words, it was a great source with great potential.

Now, why exactly does the
adaptation blow? Is it because they adapted it into a generic harem instead of an enjoyable slice of life? Or is it because they completely slaughtered the characters, and developed the cast of respectable female characters into homogenized whores craving the main dude’s dick. Well, it would have to be a mixture of the two; but predominantly the latter.

Now, I can understand that Western tastes and tastes in Japan differ. They like excessive fan service, I find it irritating. There’s an obvious difference, but it’s bearable for the most part; it’s not as prominent as it could be. But there’s a limit to everything too. When every other scene is censored due to nudity, it’s basically blatantly insinuating “Fuck you, buy the blue-ray release”. It’s probably a really effective way to catalyze sales in my opinion, but it’s still a douche thing to do. That could be ignored if the other aspects of the show was actually adapted decently, but they weren’t. .

My first major gripe would be the harem aspect of it. The first arc of MajiKoi, before branching out and choosing individual path, was essentially, a slice of life. It’s really extenuating more on friendship then it is with the individual intimate relationships, it’s reminiscent of AnoHana in a way. The main arc in the visual novel basically contains little to no romance and it’s not hindered by infatuation until you begin to branch (but that’s still only with one character). The arc is more than enough to be animated into twelve episodes, it took six hours to read. That’s reading with skipping the majority of the voice acting, basically spamming enter. It’s inevitably understandable on why they would adapt MajiKoi as a harem over a sexless slice of life (It’ll probably sell well), but it was still something that could have been done.

Now, the second gripe that basically ruins the visual novel, is slaughtering the characters. It’s similar to reading a book and developing the “ideal archetype” of the character, only to see it getting completely revamped in a movie adaptation. By slaughter, I don’t mean some slight miscalculations, it’s some pretty noticeable stuff. Some pretty notable ones would include the main character, Yamato. Now, in the visual novel, the main character is basically portrayed as an intelligent, devious tactician when it comes to facing everyday challenges; that carries on over in the anime. But in the VN, he wasn’t lusting after his friends, and his philosophies were more complex. In the anime, he was basically painted as a kind person as a kid when it came to taking in Miyako. In the visual novel, he just mentioned that she could stay if she wanted, it wasn’t through any good will, he was a nihilistic kid, I don’t think he really cared. On the other hand, each female in the visual novel had their own individual personality, in the anime, they’re basically homogenized into lusting after the dude(most notably Chris, she hated his devious dishonorable personality initially in the visual novel, however, in the anime, she doesn’t mind it). In the VN, they thought of him as a friend, and nothing more unless you pursued it while branching out.

Objective Score: 2/10. It’s a disappointment. It did one of the worst things you could do in an adaptation, it slaughtered the character. It turned something with little fan service into something based off of fan service. Action was actually the focal centerpiece in the anime, in the novel, it’s more of an underlying theme.

Subjective Score: 4/10: If you didn’t read the visual novel, you might actually like this. Most people reading the visual novel will probably dislike this immensely, it slaughtered the personalities of the majority of the characters. I guess you’ll like this if you like action, boobs, and cliché characters (excluding Miyako, she’s basically the only characters that’s pretty damn awesome in both versions, but then again, adapting a chick who’s going after the dude probably wasn’t the hardest in comparison to the rest).

First of all, my purpose writing this review for this anime is to clarify any negative comments about this anime, since so many review saying this anime is horrible because the anime itself didnt really like the VN. really? just for that reason? Honestly, why do people comparing the VN with the anime itself? we're talking about the anime in here not VN. oh god...

When i finished this series i was kinda surprised, because the score in MAL itself didnt represent how good this anime was, i dont say this anime was the best but its quite entertaining, that 6.99 is just so UNDERRATED. remember
that.

I have seen the VN itself but i am not gonna compare it, so i judge this anime purely based on how excited when i watching this anime.
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STORY - The story itself , i am not quite sure if this anime have a plot. I though the preview in MAL has explain it all. its about a bunch of girls and some boy who lives in under one roof, they represent theyself as kawakami family (sounds like a mafia, huh?), and the first of the episode you will see a war (yeah a war) which happen like in three kingdoms era. if you're thinking WTF is this, then i said this was an extracurriculer from the school that they attends. Shortly, for me Maji de Watashi is like Angel beats (Bunch of people) + Oda Nobuna (the war from edo era).

At the first, it would quite hard to follow what happen in this anime since so many things that would make the viewers scratching their head. It cant be helped since, many scenes of this anime is slices of the Visual Novel itself, no wonder if the story is kinda messed up and didnt focus on the plot.

be reversed from the story itself, The jokes that appears in this anime was really hit the spot, its really funny and quite amusing. 6/10

ART - The artwork that the Maji de Watashi have is literally good, its not something that really exaggerate. The biright coloring that they use is pretty much increasing the atmosphere, Colorful scenery, and the character design itself is pretty well made, though the quality is seems a bit lower for the other anime but the art in this anime is still pretty enjoyable to watch. However, sometimes there is a lack in character drawn quality. In some scenes, the character face seems quite been "distracted", but thats doesnt really bothering. SO, 8/10.

VOICE ACTOR - I am really attached by the voice for each character, they really represents the trait of each character, like Momoyo, she is tomboy, and the voice that they present was really like a real tomboy person, heavy voice and yet its cute. and anoher thing that should we mention is Gotou Yuuko. As the voice actor for MAyuzumi Yukie, her voice was so adorable and cute. No matter how many times you hear it, you wouldnt bored and helped to fallin love 8/10

SONG - This is maybe the reason why i love to watch Maji de Watashi. especially the OP song + the animation for the OP itself. "U-n-d-e-r--STANDING!" by Endoh Masaaki, Kitadani Hiroshi, Misato Aki is quite catchy rock song, The beats is really hyped up the viewers like me, nor it was perfectly fit with the anime.

CHARACTER - Well, its like any other harem anime, we have a tsundere (Christiane Friedrich), Dandere ( Yukie Mayuzum), the energetic one (Kazuko Kawakami), Big boobs (Momoyo Kawakami), and of course the obssesive one (Miyako Shiina) which reminds me of Sacchan in Gintama and for the main lead we have Naoe Yamato, which is very fits for the male lead, he is smart and yet its doesnt easy to tease this guy with the flirt from all the girls and a point plus for this male lead is he is not "shy" like any other harem anime.

We have a bunch of unique girls, of course it was the standard of all harem. but somehow i found its really amusing. 8/10

CONCLUSION - Basically, its lack of the story like everyone had said. but i am not really like concern about that problem since for me harem anime is just for entertaining, so i score this anime based on how satisfaction i am when i watching this anime, so did i satisfied with this anime? yes it is. its funny and yet admirable, especially for each character. so 8/10 for me.

We have Lerche's adaptation of the Minato Soft's adult visual novel that was originally release in 2009 for PC.

The first episode is full of action, the next ones are full of fanservice, but then we have this comedy drama overload with a bit of action, and it's not a great combination.

The art is awfull compared to the VN, but that will always happen, anyways, Mayumi and his co-workers made a great job.

The music goes perfectly with the scenes, Katsuhiko-san is good with his work on this and Mirai Nikki.

Every character is different, specially the female ones. personally, I fell in love with Koyuki and
Kazuko, Mayo is so cute (kawaii) and that thingy called Kuroko it's so random. Also, I'm a big fan of Asakawa Yuu, she made a great job with Momo, and even when i hate Yuko Goto's voice, she's wonderful with Yukie and Matsukaze.

Enjoyment? well, besides this genre mess, it was a good anime, and I know that the VN is 100% better, but if I have the chance to buy the BDs, I will...

MajiKoi
I watched MajiKoi because it was an alternate story from KimiAru and i wanted more from that and i can say this is very good i enjoyed this as much as KimiAru and i enjoyed both for the same but a little more this from the action and the comedy.

Story
The story is good and you will relate this with our world (politics), and i really liked the message that brings and for the other part is about a high school who has strategy fights between the classes, every class is targeted to be different, one class for the strategist, other for the fighters other for
the distractions and that will help them to see what they're going to work as in the future; Strategist: General in war or Prime minister of the country, Fighters: Soldiers of all kind, Distraction: Spy or control the media, the story is really good, although the ending was open for more content and it was a little bit of a let down.

Art & Sound
Both are very good, it has ecchi elements so it's good for the eye and the sound is just as good too, the voice acting and the music are very good.

Character
It's very good but a little less good than KimiAru on this one and there's someone you will recognize if you already saw KimiAru and that's a grown up Kuki Ageha and she is even more badass than she was in KimiAru, Yamato was weak, he always was beaten but i related to him because since the beginning he was rejected and then later a 2nd time and was sent to the friendzone by the overpowered Momoyo (two times) she gave really good fight scenes and she was a bitch sometimes, the other one that i loved besides Kuki was Miyako Shiina she was a pervert and you don't see that a lot in anime but only was a pervert with Yamato, she was really funny, the other characters weren't much on screen as Miyako but they appeared in the fight scenes against the ''bads'' because at the end i didn't saw them as the bad guys.

Enjoyment
I enjoyed everything from MajiKoi and you will too, but first go watch KimiAru because they both are good and for a high schooler Kuki.